Papercut
by Amelia-Maria
Summary: It's the anniversary of Hughes' death, and Mustang is fed up with work.


This has some very mild Roy angst. It probably shouldn't be enough to make you cry, but I tried my best to make it as lighthearted-yet-morose as possible. Wait... that doesn't sound right. Let's just say that I wrote this because I know that everyone needs that little push along the road after they've suffered a loss.

Yours truly,

Amelia.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

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**Papercut**

_"It's going to rain..."_

Obsidian eyes snapped open, and Roy Mustang suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. A loaded shotgun. A loaded shotgun in the hands of a blonde, top military sharpshooter.

_Crap_.

The safety clicked off, loud enough to startle Roy's hand into darting for the pen he'd dropped after he'd fallen asleep on his desk. Lieutenant Hawkeye sighed softly, and slipped her gun back into its holster.

"Sir, are you alright?" she asked carefully, regarding Roy with an almost sympathetic stare. Roy grunted lowly and turned away from her gaze to sign a forgotten referral form in front of him with the barest hint of interest.

It had been a year. A whole year since Hughes' death. Roy had heard of anniversaries before, of course, but he usually related the term with happy occasions like weddings and adolescent relationships. However, today was the anniversary of Hughes' murder. The word 'anniversary' no longer brought a smile to Roy's face, no matter what the size. The thought of Hughes's voice made his stomach clench and his writing falter on the paper. He could hear Hawkeye inquiring about his well-being once more, but her voice sounded far off and distant.

He was snapped back to reality when he felt his pen being gently pulled out of his hands.

"Sir, wouldn't it be better for you if you just went home for today? You haven't been looking too well," Hawkeye suggested. Roy shook his head, waving off her request and accepting his pen back.

"No, I'll be fine, thanks." Roy said in a dismissive manner, signing another paper. "I'm just a little tired. I worked late yesterday."

"That was because you fell asleep yesterday." Hawkeye pointed out, "Sir, I understand what day it is. If you feel that you have to go home..." She trailed off at the sight of Roy's defiant stare. It was like looking into the eyes of an aggressive Doberman. Staring too hard would lead to an attack. "...just tell me," Hawkeye finished softly. In an uncharacteristic form of affection, she reached out and squeezed Roy's hand before turning on her heel and leaving the room.

As the door shut, Roy let out the breath he'd been holding in, and his expression relaxed into its originally morose form. Yes, it was the anniversary of Hughes' death, and everyone in HQ knew it. The most telltale sign of the whole situation was the continuous sound of Fuery's crying coming from the Sergeant's work desk on the other side of the room. Every once in a while, the soft sniffling would escalate into full-blown sobs, and while Havoc or Breda snatched out a tissue to shove into the young Sergeant's hands, or Falman would pat his shoulder and whisper some useless encyclopedic knowledge to him, Roy would simply shove his fingers into his ear canals and re-read the same sentence on a document over and over until he felt deaf. Most of the day had been spent in this manner, until Roy had finally gotten so tired of it all, he'd fallen asleep.

"Dammit." Roy cursed foully when he felt the flesh of his index finger slide brutally over the edge of a particularly boring document. He snatched his finger back immediately to inspect the damage. The cut was thin, as if it were cut by the edge of a knife.

_Knife_.

Roy remembered the hand knife that was found at the scene of Hughes' murder. The small peice of metal was lying only a few inches away from cold fingers, already soaked with blood. Roy had recieved pictures of it in the case file he'd been given only a few days after. The sight of his friend's favorite weapon, lying uselessly next to its owner... Roy had ran out of his office after reading the file, and threw-up for what felt like hours in the mens' bathroom.

A crude, and somewhat masochistic side of Roy chuckled as he stared at the simple wound. It was as if Hughes' was there telling him to get on with his work for the sake of the life he'd left behind. The cut was a distraction from his melancholy state, encouraging him to go on with his life. Hughes had done as much as he could when he was alive, and Roy had to be the one to finish what his best friend had begun.

"Hughes, you conniving idiot," Roy said so quietly that not even Falman heard him, the grey-haired man bending over Fuery to correct a spelling mistake on a form he was filling out.

"Who's conniving?"

Roy looked up as something small and beige was waved in front of his face. Eyes focusing in, he wrinkled his nose at the sight of a band-aid. "What's this?" He asked. Havoc grinned widely, his goofy charm already lightening Roy's mood in the way only the nicotine-addicted man could do.

"It's a simple device that has the power..." Havoc grabbed Roy's hand and ripped open the band-aid, wrapping it around the wounded finger with lazy expertise, "...to make everything better. I call it," He waved his fingers around Roy's fixed-up finger with the dazzlement of a showhost, "a band-aid. Free of charge."

Roy smiled dryly and picked up his pen again to continue scribbling down signatures on another form. "Thanks, Havoc."

"No problem. Think of it as a gift from Hughes," Havoc said, his goofy smile melting into a meaningful one. Roy looked up at him, and then down at his finger. Wrapped in the adhesive gauze with the barest hint of blood at the edge, Roy realized that he'd been wrong about the papercut.

Every time Hughes had gotten a papercut while he was still alive, he would wrap his finger in about fifteen bandages. He would tell Roy, _"It bothers me if there's a constant throb in my finger while I'm trying to work. Besides..."_

_I worry people too much when they can see my pain._

_"...a band-aid makes everything better, right?"_

"You're brilliant, Havoc," Roy said gratefully as his subordinate began to walk away from his desk. Havoc waved his fingers in the air in a crude form of a wave.

"Tell me something I don't know, sir."

Roy set to work again, determined to finish everything , for once in his life, before he went home. Now fueled by his will to move on and the pressure of the band-aid on his still-throbbing cut, he felt unstoppable.

And he didn't even plug his ears when Fuery burst into tears again.


End file.
